One Battle After Another

 

One Battle After Another

Writer & Director ~ Paul Thomas Anderson

2025 ~ US

Stars ~ Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro,

Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti

 

Paul Thomas Anderson offers up another breathless kaleidoscopic drama full of satire, poignancy, excellent ensemble performances and several effortlessly suspenseful set-pieces. Under it all, Johnny Greenwood’s score plays between scenes and time to provide a fluidity to all the chaos. Covering a lot of ground, Anderson’s editing and script effortlessly leapfrogs decades and characters with a credo that nothing changes that much and we are forever chased down by our past. Indeed, the basis of the script is Tomas Pynchon’s novel written in 1990, and then Anderson says this took him about twenty years to write, but the observations and commentary, even with a little updating, are still relevant.

I’ve seen it criticised for being “liberal propaganda”, but the leftist terrorists here are surely just as caricatured as the weirdo, heartless Right Winger cabal, the slimeball white men plotting in bunker backrooms. The black gun totin’ pregnant promiscuous revolutionaries who forfeit motherhood for jealousy of her own baby and The Cause and the burn-out paranoid loser stoner dad are exactly fitting a conservative view of Leftist Revolutionaries to sneer at. Anderson says that he based the French 75 movement on The Weather Underground from the Seventies, which is a weirdly dated exemplar when there are surely more current possibilities to imagine (but you can’t be taken seriously if you say Antifa). Brett Easton Ellis accuses the film of “liberal mustiness”, of not reading the current political room;  but if the characters are manifestations of what their enemies imagine, the film’s  representation of the Right Wing is less outdated than of the left. That it provokes criticism for the portrayal of Prefidia too surely means it is poking at both sides; not that Ellen E Jones’ criticism of Anderson’s tripping on the Racist Jezebel trope is without merit, but that it perhaps misses a wider picture where all the main characters are filtered through questionable-cartoonish-broad filters. I bristled at both the naming of characters as Lockjaw and Junglepussy for being trite/obvious/dubious, but the the former is also funny as you roll your eyes, and learning that the latter is Shayna McHayle’s stage name means it is owned as a deliberate provocation; and certainly she uses her screentime to strut it, even as it hits on blackpoitation.

 

Sean Penn’s inscrutable sleazeball weirdo is unforgettable: I mean, “Col. Steven J. Lockjaw”… But I don’t think I go too far out on a limb when I say we see such cartoonish types representing Republicans and the interests of White Supremacy on a regular basis currently. Sean Penn finding the scariness of the caricature, Lockjaw is both ridiculous and dangerous, which is a truth. Leonardo DiCaprio bumbles and rants comically over his earnest intentions with Benicio Del Toro quietly securing his corner by moseying through his scene-stealing whilst everyone else does the fireworks. Teyana Taylor is the force of nature that propels the narrative long after she’s gone in hiding, and Chase Infiniti as Willa brings the down-to-earth, confused yet headstrong outcome to all of this. The prodigy of both sides, Willa’s story is the most shaded and it is pertinent that Infiniti’s performance doesn’t follow the broad strokes most around her: her character is single-handedly dragging the film from its Seventies’ Classic feel (“mustiness”?) into a yet uncharted future rebelliousness.

 

The police descending upon Sensei Sergio St. Carlos’ operation as Bob argues about passwords trying to connect with his old movement and, especially, the final car chase are highlights. Dark farce and excellent propulsive pacing mean the momentum never lets up: we are dropped into the action and it never slows, and despite what it is made of, it never feels polemical over the movie needs of fun and thrill. Afterwards, you can do your think-piece. Amusing, exciting, a little surprising, it moves from the debatable broadsides into something more heartfelt and, through the symbol and promise of Willa, something more hopeful, even if there is no certainty of what.

In fact, how relevant and zeitgeisty it feels makes it a significant satire, because: if ‘Civil War’ was portentous in its declarations, ‘One Battle After Another’ roots it all in the messy insecurities and weirdness of the individuals concerned, trying to live down their past or abusing their positions. In fact, its skewering of political extremities to personal flaws and ego is evergreen, especially for a country always at war with itself and in the Trump era feels more vital than ever.

So Long, My Son

So Long, My Son

Di jiu tianchang -  地久天长

Director – Xiaoshuai Wang

Writers – Mei Ah, Xiaoshuai Wang

2019, China

Stars – Jingchun Wang, Mei Yong, Xi Qi

A Chinese epic covering the history of two of families and especially the lifelong effect on their friendship and repercussions of the “one child” policy that lasted from 1979 to 2015. Chronicling both domestic and political contexts, its narrative requires patience and attention as it is non-linear, flip-flopping across decades. This elucidates life as a mosaic of incidents and drama, where the past, present and future are concomitant, always making away for and crashing into one another. It is also a challenge in that the audience must wait for clarification on details. The jigsaw structure means it engages like a mystery.

The shot framing is often exquisite, often being visually beautiful and busy. The locales look/are convincing lived-in, the minutiae of life cluttering up and almost overwhelming. Like the film in total, the nuances of performances, especially by the exceptional Wang Jingchun & Yong Mei, gather increasing weight as details and suppressed emotion accumulate, as understanding of their characters is layered. Inevitably, when spanning many characters over a long period and with such a complex, diced narrative, there are lacunas – Moli’s motivation is a little vague, for example – and maybe appearing a little cumbersomeness, but once the viewer gets into the flow, the temporal changes and cues reveal themselves as deftly handled.

It is also a film that centres on the political contexts that define domestic lives: here, it's the Chinese one-child policy, the post-1978 era of Reform and Opening-up, work life, etc., with a focus is on how one affects the other. It’s awareness and presentation of the micro and the macro is astute and relatable and establishes ‘So Long My Son’s place as an essential, humanist, melancholy social epic.

The three-hour length reaps tremendous rewards in that, come the end, the audience is no doubt craving for reconciliation. Antecedents like Edward Yang’s domestic epics are obvious, demanding patience and attention to detail until investment in the characters has gone deeper than the viewer perhaps realised (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Drive my Car’ being another recently). Personally, I was surprised to find myself aggressively wishing for a sympathetic resolution – and it comes not as wish-fulfilment “happy ending”, but just the tide of life. It’s deeply moving.

Don't Look Up

Director – Adam McKay

Writers – Adam McKay(screenplay by), David Sirota(story by)

2021 - USA

Stars – Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep

Current American MSM perniciousness and shallowness will be an extinction event.

Falls somewhere between Mike Judges’ ‘Idiocracy’ and McKay’s own ‘The Big Short’. Takes the guise of a hip screwball celebrity ensemble satire. A couple of university astronomers discover an asteroid aiming for Earth to wipe everything. However, American mainstream culture is ill-equipped to deal with this for its narcissism, short attention-span, greed, stupidity, political opportunism and vapidness. There’s enough here that upset the right Rightish people, but it is also preaching to the choir: its targets are so obvious that it’s never going to convert anyone. Mostly it’s just nodding along. And anyway, nothing will or can match the cartoonish mayhem and abhorrence of the source material. That is: it’s reflective rather than predictive. 

And mostly the human race goes to hell due to idiocy and self-interest, which means that the full reality and extent of behind-the-scenes nefariousness and manipulation is never addressed. There’s no Murdoch here, or a Roy family, which is surely a gaping lacuna, and an angle McKay is fully aware of having directed ‘Succession’.  

Of the cast, Mark Rylance strikes a chord the most with his almost android-like portrayal of a tech mogul that scuppers mankind’s last hope because he sees a money-making opportunity – probably thinking he’s too big to fail. The most surprising moment is when he’s called out by Dr Mindy (Di Caprio) and his demeanour turns on a dime into threatening without missing a beat. 

There are, of course, a few years’ worth of real world source material for ‘Don’t Look Up’ to draw from, from climate change denial to COVID response. Neil Morris summaries, “as the most risible responses to the virus outbreak become commonplace and normalized, sometimes it takes sardonic, albeit unnuanced allegory to snap us back to reality.” It’s not a reality snapping allegory but a distillation of the cultural problems that have made proper, clear responses to these apocalyptic threats possible. Chris Betram puts ‘Don’t Look Up’ as a ‘Dr Strangelove’ redux:

“Obviously satire, obviously really about our inability to act against climate change, but also about the comical inability of the United States to play the role it has arrogated to itself.” 

But it doesn’t feel quite as sharp beneath its broadness, never quite pulling out the insightful farce it wants to be. Yet it’s swipes about vacuous celebrity culture stymieing the media’s ability to discuss serious discussion hit home, as well as the fickleness and aggressive denialism of cultists and culture, etc. So it is far from subtle but, despite missing the mechanisations of deliberate aggressors, ‘Don’t Look Up’ gathers up enough principle ingredients and heavy-weight actors to be an interesting and entertaining commentary on the zeitgeist. 

2021 Film review - Home screen

And…

 

Some of the films below might actually be more 2020, but I was only aware of them last year, so indulge me as I am sure there is some overlap, especially with the NetFlix/Prime titles. They’re kinda current anyhow.

 

What really struck me about Thomas Vinterberg’s excellent ‘Another Round’ is how it reserved judgement and showed alcohol being an enabler of confidence. This, just as much as apparently essential for a good time, was shown to be intrinsic to its addictive qualities. A group of teacher friends decide to become alcoholics by using the pretence of an experiment about alcohol consumption. This criticism of Danish drinking culture was like a needle slowly being pushed in. That it ended on a note of exuberance seemed to have left some thinking it was a feel-good conclusion, but that surely neglects all the subtleties planted throughout. After all, drinking is associated with good times and I didn’t find anything conclusive come the deceptive jubilation of the ending.

 

Emma Seligman’s ‘Shiva Baby’ had a crackling script and really tapped into that most stressful context: the official social gathering. Conflicts of the demands of tradition and generation rule: young people playing parts to get through the scrutiny of the older generation. A touch of farce underpins it all, as does the comedy of embarrassment, but its humour is wry and sly, its cultural observation empathetic. Best and contrarian of all, it’s scored like a horror film by Ariel Marx, playing up the anxieties of these occasions.

 

Jane Campion’s ‘The Power of the Dog’ was a slow burner, pretty to look at and full of set pieces that showed bullying without resorting to typical displays of violence. How it destroys confidence and starts resentment festering. Full of mind-games, innuendo, repression, and things left unspoken. Perhaps Johhny Greenwood’s often discordant score should have been a clue to the film’s insidiousness and long game. Armond White’s conclusion of the film and Jane Campion’s of homophobia is surely wrongheaded in that it neglects character agency and that their behaviour is borne from the environmental misogyny and repression. It also features two excellent performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee. 

 

J Blakeson’s ‘I Care a Lot’ was a bone fide provocation with the sheer amorality and immorality of its characters. But therein was a critic/condemnation not only of the system the capitalist characters exploit, but of how happy audiences are with the conmen struts in cinema. And Rosamund Pike plays her villainess with shallow charm and relish that asks, really, why would you root for her machinations? It was also to include the complicity and enablement in its target range.

 

Kitty Green’s excellent ‘The Assistant’ was another film with slow-burn and insidious designs. It told of just another workday of the assistant to a powerful executive, but was really a portrayal of the daily enablement and complicity in bullying, exploitation and abuse – and being overworked was the least of it. It was the muffled scream to ‘Promising Young Woman’s yell, although its commitment to its just-another-day agenda surely bored some. But that’s the point: its all-pervasive and the normalising of maltreatment.

 

Michael Sarnoski’s ‘Pig’ also contained an admonishment of the soul-destroying nature of work. The best scene, for me, was when Nicolas Cage quietly but thoroughly reminded a former employee of the dreams and ambition he had once had, the kind ground out of you. Mostly, it came as a great character piece and subversion of the typical revenge pic.

 

Xiaoshuai Wang’s ‘So Long, My Son’ was also a slow burn, focusing on the effects of China’s “One Child” policy and the lifelong effect of a loss of a child. But I wasn’t quite prepared for the realisation that over its three-hour runtime it had thoroughly sunk its claws into me, and that it achieved such an emotional effect on me that I found myself aggressively wishing for a happy ending. Which never happens (I go with the flow to see what’s to be said). It has a naturally cluttered look, increasingly affecting performances, a little tricky with its temporal play, but ultimately a very moving and reflective film.

 

Adam Mackay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ was perhaps too cartoony as a satire to be properly upsetting or chilling, and it was preaching to the choir, but it still contained enough to upset snowflake Right-wingers. And anyway, accusing a political portrayal as “too cartoony” seems redundant in an era still suffering from Trumpism. Ultimately, it posits that current American MSM perniciousness and shallowness will be an extinction event. It would make an interesting double-bill with ‘The Pizzagate Masacare’.

 

In fact, although it came over as just another action flick, Ric Roman Waugh’s ‘Greenland’ probably proved a more upsetting end-of-the-world drama. Certainly, the separation of parents from kids was easily more emotionally worrying – it is the scene where they’re trying to get on the plane that stayed with me most. It proved surprisingly enjoyable and well-executed for your typical family-in-peril apocalypse.

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And now to dramas through a horror lens:

 

Of which Rose Glass’ ‘Saint Maud’ was a favourite. Another drama of female mental instability with great performances by Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Ehle. Dull English coastal towns played up for their dilapidated charm, with eeriness and tension on display. We know Maud’s trajectory will not be a good one, what with religious delusion taking hold in an attempt to control trauma, but how long it will take is another matter. And leading to an unforgettable and harrowing finale.

 

The underground favourite was Jonathan Cuartas’ ‘My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To’. One of those films that puts vampire rules in downbeat, grubby neo-realist context. This time, the focus is on family dynamics and as the older siblings of a young, naive blood drinker turn serial killers to feed him. It’s emphasis is more on the gloom of sadness and loneliness than horror flourishes. With the title song providing all the lush emotional release the characters don't have, its dour tone, smart execution, editing, the excellent performances and enough twists make for a compelling domestic horror.

 

Pascual Sisto’s ‘John and the Hole’ was also interested in the horror of family dynamic, but in a way reminiscent of Yorgos Lanthimos. That meant that the family insisting on returning to normal was the open-ended chill. Unsettling drama (one of the key questions is how "horror" this will get) that is ultimately about the performance of family dynamics as 13-year-old John - a compelling and near-inscrutable creepy-sweet performance by Charlie Shotwell - tries to play out one of his offbeat questions: what would it be like if the family weren't around? Perhaps too ambiguous for its own good in the end, but fascinating and always intriguing. Horror is other people, when their oddness gets out of hand.

 

And back to the distressed and mental health of women:

 

Of course, there was ‘Promising Young Woman’ and ‘Lucky’ but the other favourite was Prano Bailey-Bond’s ‘Censor’. The premise was catnip for genre fans: a censor cracks up in the Eighties’ video nasty period. The certain British Eighties grubbiness is well represented and then homages to the genre take control. Hey: in the woods! It was a vivid example of horror homage: combining the genre's close affinity to trauma and nightmare logic and aligning the 80s "Video Nasty" censorship with delusion, denial and repression. Ratio changes, a touch of giallo and Niamh Algar's flinty central performance make this both smart and playful.

 

Falling short of hitting the mark in the same area were ‘Knocking’ and ‘The Strings’. And they both began with gorgeous beach shots: ‘Knocking’ was as gorgeously summery as ‘The Strings’ was gorgeously bleak.

 

Frida Kempff’s ‘Knocking’ had the promising premise of a woman recovering from a breakdown besieged by knocking in the apartment block where she is placed. Now, knocking is just frightening (I learnt this from Robert Wise’s ‘The Haunting’ when at a tender age), but the knocking here is distressing rather than frightening. Cecelia Milocco's committed, nuanced performance holds it all together, its exploration of a woman's fragile state being constantly under siege by real or imagined urgencies and the horror of being disbelieved rang true enough. Yet, despite its shorter run-time, it leaves its audience as much running in circles as the distressed protagonist, doesn't quite follow up on some points and - being so focused on her dilemma - the answer almost comes as an after-thought; or at least at her expense. Too much build-up and too little pay-off?

 

Ryan Glover’s ‘The Strings’ made knocking scary, but ultimately didn’t seem so interested in its horror feints. Certainly our protagonist didn’t seem to be so bothered, just inconvenienced by them maybe. Instead, there were plenty of nice scenes of her making music, which anyone making DIY tunes will relate to. There is a great soundtrack and presence by Teagan Johnston (the kind where any shonky acting doesn’t matter) but when the spooky stuff happens - and it takes a loooong time to kick off - it mostly comes to nothing as Catherine barely engages with the supernatural side of the narrative: there's a tendency to cut away from heightened moments to the everyday stuff with the impression that nothing really has any resonance. It has desolate prettiness and great DIY music moments but ultimately doesn't let the supernatural say anything about the character drama.

 

For male madness, there was Amber Sealey’s ‘No Man of God’, a drama based around FBI analyst Bill Hagmaier’s interviews with Ted Bundy. As Hagmaier, Elijah Woods initially seemed cast a little against type but provided a career best. As Bundy, Luke Kirby gave a convincing portrayal of a man whose charm has been much wrongly aggrandised. It was a solid drama that always kept the victims as foremost in consideration, with most of the drama coming from Bundy not coming clean. Not much glorification or exploitation here.

 

 

To fantastical horror:

                                                                                       

Alejandro Fadel’s ‘Murder Me, Monster’ was the first film I saw in 2020 (although it was 2019, I think?) and proved quite unforgettable. It’s slow burn and slightly offbeat approach to its tale of a possible monster fixed to the symmetry of nature was not presented in a usual fashion. It was more like ‘Once Upon a Time in Antonia’ than even your typical smouldering moody horror (e.g. ‘Sator’). Wilfully cryptic, but there was a monster and, boy, what a monster!

 

Brandon Cronenberg’s ‘Possessor’ was a total shocker and immediate favourite. As clinical as his father’s early work, but slick and confident, disturbing and highlighted with vivid violence and practical effects in a way that felt distinctly his own. Technology, terrible violence, big business conspiracy, identity crises, psychopathy, faltering identity and reality, slightly abstract and thoroughly visceral… Chilling and thrilling.

 

And surely few would argue that Jordan Graham’ ‘Sator’ was an impressive piece of work, handmade almost totally by himself over seven years. Here was a film that thoroughly exploited the “banging is scary” that I mentioned earlier. But there were moments where it reminded me as much of Tarkovsky as the cabin-in-the-woods genre. Built from his grandmother’s genuine belief in a supernatural entity watching over them, the mood and the frighteners are consummately executed, the mystery maintained and resulted in a superior horror mood piece.

Another small-scale winning horror was Damian McCarthy’s ‘Caveat’, which was full of eerie images and creepiness, unsettling and somewhere between Gothic and contemporary, supernatural and psychological horror. Definitely left an impression from the moment I started smiling at the genre delights of an amnesic protagonist and “didn’t I say it’s on an island?” and “didn’t I mention you’ll be chained up?” It’s darkly amusing when a protagonist doesn’t know he’s in a horror film.

 

But if you were looking for bonkers, trashy genre, then you couldn’t go too far wrong with Richard Shepard’s ‘The Perfection’, which started out in one place and then twisted and turned until it was unrecognisable as the same film by the end. It’s a film where you just go along for the ride and you soon stop saying “Wha…?” Not as artful as, say, ‘The Handmaiden’, but fun nonetheless.

 

Bryan Bertino’s ‘The Dark and the Wicked’ was slick enough, but a little lax in its internal logic. Similarly, Kimo Stanmboel’s ‘The Queen of Black Magic’ seemed to lack a magic ingredient that made the most of its setting and premise. And I also enjoyed Anthon Scott Burn’s ‘Come True’ less than others. It had atmosphere but it’s not often that ending won’t come as a source of frustration for me. These were films very much stronger when building up.

The simple genre pleasures of Corinna Faith’s ‘The Power’ were less disappointing, surely because I went in with lower expectations. A great location in the old hospital distinguishing it and a somewhat clunky feminist subtext (well, not so much sub) notwithstanding. Peter Thorwarth’s ‘Blood Red Sky’ was enjoyable enough but also felt like it should be that much better, hampered by angst and unnecessary flashbacks that got in the way of its vampires-on-a-plane premise.

 

But then there were thorough losers for me. Jason Howden’s ‘Guns Akimbo’ never left its look-at-me! adolescence into something self-aware and genuinely smart, which was a shame because I enjoyed Howden’s ‘Deathgasm’. Not nearly as egregious but also not-so-good was also Joe Carnahan’s ‘Boss level’, even if it had time-loops and video game action.

 

There was the Nicolas Cage twofer Sion Sono’s ‘Prisoners of the Ghostland’ and Kevin Lewis’ ‘Willy’s Wonderland’. ‘Ghostland’ was often just busy doing nothing and angsting when it should have been moving. ‘Wonderland’ wasn’t as much fun as it thought it was and seemed happy to coast on It’s Fucking Nicolas Cage! For his part, Cage’s happy embracing of the absurd was totally appropriate for these films, and it’s remarkable that he could go from this to ‘Pig’ without missing a beat. The difference being Cage the fanboy pop-phenomenon and Cage the actor.

 

Josh Ruben’s ‘Werewolves Within’, however, won me over. Its comedic tone initially didn’t click with me, being very much characters screeching at each other as if insisting on their funniness. But when it ultimately turned to be a tirade against the eponymous selfishness, I was fully on board. It’s a bit scrappy, but it has enough whodunnit?! playfulness, wit and self-awareness, and good intention that it does a good job of charming past its weaknesses. Not bad for a video game adaptation.

 

And another film that proved itself just by getting on with being happy with what it is, and also better than its title promised, was Michael Matthews’ 'Love and Monsters’. A likeable sad-sack lead in Dylan O’Brien, a romcom-horror premise – he sets out across the monster infested distance in search of a girl he fancies – and enough sense to let the monster element mitigate any romcom triteness, it was a charmer.

 

And in other otherworldly dilemmas, there was ‘Chaos Walking’, whose gimmick of thoughts bursting out loud constantly – for the men, at least – should have but didn’t sink it for me. Rather, it was a decent Western-style sci-fi of the Young Adult variety. Decent in that it was easy to watch, looked good and you can’t go far wrong With Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley and Mads Mikkelson. But despite the Heard Male Thoughts gimmick, although thwarting possible romantic interludes, the prodding at themes of machismo doesn’t do so more than superficially (I haven’t read the source book, Patrick Ness’ ‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ but one provocative subplot seems to be that all the women were murdered because the men couldn’t bear their thoughts being overheard all the time).

 

Far more curious and impressive was Christopher Caldwell and Zeek Earl similarly Western-inclined ‘Prospect’ (this one was 2018). It turned that favoured low-budget location of a forest into an alien planet just by having bits floating in the atmosphere. This was not a film of big effects but was pretty and focused on the dilemma of a teenaged girl fending for herself when marooned in a world peppered by mercenary prospectors. Immersive and interested in story and atmosphere rather than dazzle.

 

Chino Moya’s ‘Undergods’ was also heavy on atmosphere, but this time we were in a futuristic-ish European Dystopia, the kind so washed out and beak that you’ll be inclined to remember it in black or white. It was a bundle of connecting stories about how shit life can be, but also intriguing tales of family and exploitation that had hints of fables about them. There was a sense that this was only a glimpse of this world, that this was the outskirts, and the fact that there was a desire to see more surely meant it hit many of its targets.

 

But when it came to fantasy, it was David Lowery’s ‘The Green Knight’ that proved a most wonderous interpretation of the genre, inhabiting a touch of everything. Introverted, yes, with a measured pace and agreeably down-to-earth with a sense there were real feelings and anxieties to these archetypes. Yet quite happy to do bigger flourishes with wandering battleground aftermaths and giants. Monsters. Talking animals. Pretty fantasia. Gothic shadows. Mystery. Thoroughly beguiling.

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Some Favourite Moments

 

Mads Mikelson dancing in ‘Another Round’

The opening pre-credits sequence of ‘The Empty Man’

The opening of ‘The Beta Test’

The restaurant scene in ‘Pig’

The horror score in ‘Shiva Baby’

The shock of ‘Possessor’

The emotional impact of ‘So Long, My Son’

Giants walking in ‘The Green Knight